Missing on Superstition Mountain (Superstition Mountain Mysteries)

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Even though I felt they needed more depth - and I certainly hope to see them developed more fully in the next two books - I still liked these kids, particularly Henry, whose thoughts we're most often given access to. The story itself is relatively familiar - kids make discovery, try to investigate on their own, run into some danger, make more discoveries.

It's worked for years and it again works well here. Broach moves things along at a nice clip and readers are left wanting more, just as they should at the end of the first book in a series. Overall, Missing on Superstition Mountain has a rather old-fashioned feel to it, different in tone, but similar in feel to Jeanne Birdsall's wonderful Penderwicks series and very reminiscent of books I read and loved as a child and am happily sharing with my grandchildren now. I'm happy to have it as part of my collection and am looking forward to reading the rest of the series. A good pick for boys and girls; may appeal to reluctant readers; could well spark an interest in western lore and legend.

Artwork by Antonio Javier Caparo.

As a retired 4th grade teacher who lives fairly close to the Superstition Mountains, I found this book to be a fun read. I read it initially because I thought my granddaughter might like it and wanted to try it out. Having gone to several field trips with my classes to the Superstitions, I found this such a fun read that I recommended it to my former 4th grade team to read to their classes.

This book is perfectly suited for Arizona 4th grade classrooms as they study their state. But, there is just the right amount of adventure, humor and suspense to make it the perfect classroom readaloud wherever you live. I am anxiously awaiting the rest of the trilogy. So I was looking forward to reading this one. I did enjoy it. I wouldn't call it compelling exactly, but it was interesting to go with the Barker brothers and their friend Delilah on their adventures.

I, being a librarian, really appreciated how Broach showed the children searching out answers in several different ways, at the library, seeking witnesses, and going right to the scene of the mysterious happenings. I loved the setting, what a great idea, a Bermuda Triangle, on land.

Broach did a great job creating an intriguing setting that the reader is interested in learning more about, along with the main characters. The writing is very good, clear and easy to follow. The illustrations added to the tension and atmosphere. The only problem I had was a couple of illustrations didn't quite match the written text. This is something I tend to notice because it bothers me.

But the story was enjoyable enough that I willingly overlooked the few errors.

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I appreciated the author's note informing me that while the story is fiction it is based on a real place and some real events. Overall, a nice read, with plenty of discussion points if used as a read-a-loud. The day I finished reading Missing on Superstition Mountain to my eight-year-old twins, one immediately began from the beginning and the other went and dug out Broach's Shakespeare's Secret and reread it.

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Then they found our copy of Broach's Masterpiece and we just finished rereading it together last night. I guess we are in the market for anything else Broach has written These books are all exciting novels loaded with historic fact. One person found this helpful 2 people found this helpful. Great, are there more of these is the question from the boys. One person found this helpful.

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Apaches and Peraltas

Published on January 20, Published on December 29, Published on October 16, Published on July 17, Published on July 4, Published on April 28, There is certainly mystery and intrigue and suspense on the mountain and, by extension, in the town of Superstition. Tragically, they stumbled through the story, into a canyon, out of danger, onto the mountain, upon a mystery, and then into trouble.

The three brothers and their friend, Delilah, bicycle around town. They go to the library to learn about Superstition Mountain. In the story — based on factual incidents — people have gone missing. And the boys find three of the missing persons. At least, they find three skulls. The secret of the Dutchman is allegedly laid out in the Peralta Stones , a series of etched stones — some rectangular, some shaped like crosses, others like hearts — that allegedly indicate the location of the vast riches of the Superstitions, if only you can read them right.

The Heart Map features not one but two pop-out hearts, including the so-called Latin Heart, which bears a number of inscriptions in not entirely accurate Latin. According to author Jim Hatt, these stones were found in the s on the side of the road by a police officer named Travis Tumlinson, but the names "Pedro" and "Miguel" on the stones stands as evidence that these weird coded maps belonged to the Peralta family hence the name and the stones were spilled on the roadside during the Apache Massacre.

Hatt goes on to do some truly Art Bell -level interpretive work on the Latin heart. Finally, the Dutchman comes in. Like we said, there's no Dutchman, at least in the sense that there's no one from the Netherlands in this story.

Book Review: Missing on Superstition Mountain by Elise Broach

There is a Germanman, let's call it. The Dutchman terminology comes from the same mix-up of the words "Deutsch" German for "German" and "Dutch" English for "Dutch" that gives us such terms as " Pennsylvania Dutch. The Germanman in question is one Jacob Waltz various spellings of his name abound , though a second Germanman with a suspiciously similar name, Jacob Weiser, is often included in the tale. In a version of the story related by True West magazine , Waltz and Weiser were prospectors who hadn't yet found their big score until one night they saved a man's life in a cantina brawl.

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That man turned out to be wait for it Don Miguel Peralta, who, in gratitude, told the two men the location of his family's bountiful mine in the Superstition Mountains. Weiser disappeared under mysterious circumstances — in some versions killed by Apaches, in others killed by Waltz — but Waltz would return to the mine whenever he needed money and then pop back into town, making it rain hail?

Waltz allegedly died of pneumonia in the winter of with a sack of gold under his bed. Since that moment, the search for the Lost Dutchman's Mine has been on. The story of the Dutchman and his unimaginable bounty would soon catch the public imagination and become one of the best known and most sought-after treasures in American history.

During the midth century, when Westerns were especially popular, the tale of the Lost Dutchman's Mine was a popular motif. The book Thunder God's Gold by Barry Storm tells of the author's real-life attempts to find the gold mine himself during the s and s. This book inspired the movie Lust for Gold , which starred Glenn Ford as Jacob Walz and Ida Lupino as whitewashed Julia Thomas, Walz's neighbor who took care of him on his deathbed and who was allegedly the one person he told the location of his mine.

She couldn't find it either. Likewise, the mine found its way onto TV, such as in a episode of the Western series Laramie , and more improbably, a episode serialized story on the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Ruff and Reddy. The mine and its secrets have similarly inspired video games and amusement park rides , and even the park service got in on that sweet Dutch action, opening the Lost Dutchman State Park in , which includes trails named for figures in the legend, like Jacob Walz and the Peralta family. But the event that really spurred interest in the Lost Dutchman's Mine, before the movies, before Barry Storm, was the real-life disappearance and death of treasure hunter Adolph Ruth.

By , Ruth became convinced that one of the crudely drawn maps in his possession would lead him to the Dutchman's mine, but his luck wasn't any better than it had been in California. Within days, Ruth had disappeared without a trace.

Mysteries of the Superstition Mountains

It wasn't until later that campers discovered a note in a bottle written by Ruth saying that he had again broken his leg and needed help. But perhaps of more interest was the note's casual postscript: Have found the lost Dutchman. When Ruth's body was found in a gold-lust-fueled search in December , the mystery only deepened.

Although Ruth's note concerning his broken leg and need for help led searchers to believe that he must have starved to death waiting for rescue, as AZ Central reports , new theories popped up after the discovery of his skull with a hole in it that according to the coroner's reports was created by an "Army-style 44 caliber revolver. But in Thunder God's Gold , Barry Storm alleges that on his own search for the mine, he had barely escaped the fire of a sniper he called "Mr.

X" who he believed was protecting the mine. He suggests that Adolph Ruth may have also gotten too close and fallen prey to this mysterious sniper who apparently uses a revolver instead of, say, a rifle.

Wait, it gets weirder. A month after the discovery of Ruth's skull, the rest of his remains were found almost a mile away, confirmed by the presence of the steel plate in his leg from his previous treasure hunt heck-up.

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